Expatriates can find teabags catering to western palates on Tesco's shelves in China, and even Newcastle Brown Ale in major cities such as Beijing. The firm has also sought to appeal to the increasingly adventurous tastes of Chinese consumers with strategic imports — such as bottles of Spanish red wine for as little as two pounds each.

But for the most part it has been aiming squarely at the regular Chinese consumer. That has meant offering everything from single eggs and 10kg bags of rice to humidifiers playing the Chinese national anthem. While Tesco's value range logo is easily recognisable, it appears on bumper packs of noodles rather than loaves of sliced bread.

You are more likely to find lychee or cucumber flavour crisps in their stores than salt-and-vinegar. Snacks mean chicken feet, not sausage rolls. Wet market sections allow people to pick out fish from the tank.

And since many customers still arrive by cycle, the staff will even pump up bike tyres while you shop.

But that and a sharp eye on prices has not been enough to win customers over. Supermarket companies in general have been under pressure and foreign chains face increasingly tough competition from domestic players. Tesco was also a late entrant to the market and never caught up with Carrefour and WalMart. It bought its first stake in China in 2004, began with a relatively modest set of stores and was happy to operate the branding of its partner, Ting Hsing. It did not open an own name location until 2007.